This Morning: Good Tidings for EBAY, AMZN, More Cheer for Facebook

By Tiernan Ray

Here’s some things going on this morning in your world of tech:

US equity markets will close today at 1 PM in honor of Christmas Eve.

Shares of Facebook (FB) are down 3 cents at $26.23 despite some encouraging words from Laura Martin of Needham & Co., who raised her price target to $33 from $25, after raising her estimates for 2013 based on what she believes will be “strong” revenue growth from mobile users. Martin now models $6.5 billion in revenue next year, up from a prior $6.28 billion estimate.

More data about the holiday shopping season and e-commerce were out over the weekend. Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster this morning writes that data from comScore (SCOR) show online sales were tracking up by 16%, year over year, through December 21st, with a 53% jump last week, an acceleration from earlier in the season. That leads Munster to conclude “Aided in part by extended shipping timetables relative to last year for e-commerce orders, holiday may have actually happened this past weekend.”

In addition, Munster found that “ChannelAdvisor Data Points To Share Gains By Amazon.com (AMZN)/eBay (EBAY).”

Amazon shares today are up $1.37, or half a percent, at $258.29, while eBay stock is up 8 cents at $51.43.

One thing that appears not to be selling, or not as much, are electronics. Topeka Capital Markets’s Brian White this morning writes that data out Friday from electronics trade group IPC revealed the second-lowest November book-to-bill ratio for the printed circuit board industry in the last decade. The only one worse was in November of 2006. He expects contract electronics manufacturers such as Jabil Circuit (JBL), Celestica (CLS), and Flextronics (FLEX) to struggle as a result.

Speaking of soggy sales, The New York Times’s Nick Wingfieldyesterday penned an item about how the latest version of Microsoft‘s (MSFT) Windows, Windows 8, is not following the typical pattern of juicing computer sales. Describing the low level of activity at Microsoft’s recently introduced pop-up stores, and contrasting it to Apple‘s (AAPL) packed boutiques, Wingfield writes “the struggles of Microsoft and other companies that depend heavily on the computer business will not abate soon.”

Another thing that appears to be struggling, Financial Times’s April Dembosky wrote yesterday, is the traditional toy business as it gets pummeled by kids’ desire for tablet computers.

She writes that Mattel (MAT) and Hasbro (HAS) are both “terrified” by the onslaught of tablets as presents this holiday season, citing sell-side estimates, which are going down for both companies.

Bernstein Research’s Mark Moerdler this morning defends Adobe (ADBE) shares following last week’s uninspiring fiscal Q4 performance. Reiterating an Outperform rating, Moerdler writes that investors’ two main traditional concerns, Apple doing away with support for Adobe’s Flash technology, and HTML5 replacing Adobe’s tools, should not be any concern at all to investors. Moerdler reiterated a $45 price target on the stock.

Adobe shares today are down 23 cents, or 0.6%, at $37.48.

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